Abstract The introduction of genetically modified plants into the environment has been marked by different positions, either in favor of or against their release. However, the problem goes well beyond such contradictory positions; it is necessary to take into account the legislation, ethics, biosafety, and the environment in the considerations related to the release of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). To this end, the Brazilian Committee of Biosafety (CTNBio), a consultative and deliberative multidisciplinary collegiate, provides technical and advisory support to the (...) Brazilian Federal Government. This committee consists of scientists and non-scientists who participate in evaluating the dossiers of companies that are requesting approval by the Brazilian Government; consequently, the aim of this study was to investigate whether commercial approvals of GMOs were associated with the profile of the CTNBio members. Research was based on the minutes taken at CTNBio meetings carried out from 2006 up to 2009, considering law 11.105/2005 and the Constitution of 1988 as legal frameworks, to determine the number of voters in favor of or against releasing genetically modified Bt-maize, Bt-cotton, and herbicide resistant soybeans to be used in Brazilian agriculture. Via the internet, we had access to the curriculum vitae of the CTNBio members through the Plataforma Lattes database of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), where we found their area of expertise. CTNBio members were divided into expert-for, expert-against, non-expert-for, and non-expert-against. Results showed that CTNBio decisions could be based on technical criteria as well as on the policy of the institution that expert-members were representing. Content Type Journal Article Category Articles Pages 1-11 DOI 10.1007/s10806-011-9347-x Authors Glenda Morais Rocha Braña, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Bioética da Cátedra/UNESCO, Faculdade de Ciências da Saúde, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, DF, Brazil Ana Luisa Miranda-Vilela, Departamento de Genética e Morfologia, Laboratório de Genética Toxicológica, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, DF, Brazil Cesar Koppe Grisolia, Departamento de Genética e Morfologia, Laboratório de Genética Toxicológica, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, DF, Brazil Journal Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics Online ISSN 1573-322X Print ISSN 1187-7863. (shrink)

Brazil is the biggest market for pesticides in the world. In the registration process, a pesticide must be authorized by the Institute of the Environment, Health Surveillance Agency and Ministry of Agriculture. Evaluations follow a package of toxicological studies submitted by the companies and also based on the Brazilian law regarding pesticides. We confronted data produced by private laboratories, submitted to the Institute of the Environment for registration, with data obtained from scientific databases, corresponding to mutagenicity, carcinogenicity and teratogenicity of (...) pesticides. All studies submitted by the companies were carried out by private laboratories. From 247 pesticide formulations analyzed, none showed positive results for mutagenicity, carcinogenicity or teratogenicity. From 574 articles in the scientific literature, 84% published by public laboratories showed positive results, while 79% of those showing negative results came from private laboratories. There is an ethical concern about a conflict of interest between public/independent laboratories and private laboratories that produce data for registering pesticides. We demonstrated that there is a clear contradiction between public and private laboratories. Brazilian regulatory authorities have approved the registration of pesticides based almost exclusively on the monographs provided by the pesticide industry, because the use of scientific articles or information from the independent literature is strongly belittled by the industry. Pesticide companies argue that scientific articles cannot be trusted. Also, according to the industry, pesticide registration cannot be refused based on results from scientific articles. Thus, the registration of pesticides with mutagenic, carcinogenic and teratogenic risks has been approved in Brazil. (shrink)

Esse artigo apresenta a categoria da dupla mimese desenvolvida por György Lukács em sua Estética no interior da peculiaridade da arquitetura a partir do exemplo da Catedral de Santa Maria del Fiore; o Duomo de Florença. Para tanto, nossa exposição se concentra essencialmente em duas partes, sendo a primeira delas referente ao reflexo desantropomorfizado da construção da sua cúpula que envolve os resultados científico-tecnológicos em resposta às demandas sociais presentes à época – a primeira mimese –, e a segunda parte (...) referente ao reflexo antropomorfizado da obra – a segunda mimese – que, em determinação reflexiva ao polo desantropomorfizado do reflexo, estabelece, em unidade formal, a dimensão estética da construção; sua dimensão enquanto arte. (shrink)

Several countries maintain universal health coverage, which implies responsibility to organize delivery formats of healthcare services and products for citizens. In Brazil, the health system has a principle of universal access for more than 30 years, but many deficiencies remain and the country observes a day practice for those seeking judicial decisions to determine provision of healthcare.

Neste artigo, defendemos a tese de que a Educação é um dos temas fundamentais da reflexão de Lima Vaz. Propomos mostrar de que maneira, para ele, o ethos possui papel importante na formação da consciência e da personalidade morais. Em primeiro lugar, explicitaremos em que sentido a educação, embora não seja tema principal de nenhuma obra de Lima Vaz, pode ser compreendida como tema transversal que perpassa as obras do autor. Em seguida, explicitaremos qual o papel do ethos na (...) constituição do caráter. Ora, o ethos é coextensivo à cultura. Ao ser socializado, o sujeito aprende uma língua, pode ser introduzido nas tradições de uma religião, e interioriza normas de conduta. Por um lado, o ethos possui importante papel na formação do caráter e da personalidade. A comunidade educa o indivíduo e, neste sentido, é também responsável por ele. Por outro lado, o hábito ético garante a permanência do ethos. Logo, o sujeito também é responsável por suas ações e pela manutenção do ethos. Finalmente, mostraremos que a crise do ethos e da tradição torna necessário adotar postura reflexiva. Torna-se necessário tomar distância e avaliar o próprio ethos concreto. A relação entre o sujeito e o ethos não é completamente determinada. O sujeito pode sempre se opor às tradições e colocar em questão a validade das mesmas. Além disso, quando as tradições estão em crise se faz necessário redescobrir uma nova orientação através do exercício do logos. Esta orientação deve ser capaz de conduzir o sujeito à realização do bem. Palavras-chave: Ética. Educação. Ethos. Tradição. Bem. (shrink)

Enactivists claim that social cognition is constituted by interactive processes and even more radically that there is ‘no observation without interaction’. Nevertheless, the notion of interaction at the core of the account has not yet being characterized in a way that makes good the claim that interactions actually constitute social understanding rather than merely facilitating or causally contributing to it. This paper seeks to complement the enactivist approach by offering an account of basic joint action that involves and brings with (...) it basic forms of mental understanding. The paper turns to theories of joint action rather than theories of perception as some enactivists have done :535–543, 2008; Thompson in J Conscious Stud 8:1–32, 2001), to gain insight into the kind of interactions that underpin our understanding of other minds, and in that way, supplement the interactionist-enactive account. In line with Enactivism, the paper argues that this kind of social understanding is practical rather than theoretical and that it is cognitively more basic and developmentally prior when compared to other ways we come to understand other minds. (shrink)

The paper presents two empirical cases of expert musicians—a classical string quartet and a solo, free improvisation saxophonist—to analyze the explanatory power and reach of theories in the field of expertise studies and joint action. We argue that neither the positions stressing top-down capacities of prediction, planning or perspective-taking, nor those emphasizing bottom-up embodied processes of entrainment, motor-responses and emotional sharing can do justice to the empirical material. We then turn to hybrid theories in the expertise debate and interactionist accounts (...) of cognition. Attempting to strengthen and extend them, we offer ‘Arch’: an overarching conception of musical interaction as an externalized, cognitive scaffold that encompasses high and low-level cognition, internal and external processes, as well as the shared normative space including the musical materials in which the musicians perform. In other words, ‘Arch’ proposes interaction as a multivariate multimodal overarching scaffold necessary to explain not only cases of joint performance, but equally of solo improvisation. (shrink)

Bottom of the Pyramid organizations are the ones that develop a set of capabilities that contribute to create short- and long-term sustainability values inside and outside the boundaries of BoP ecosystems. Capabilities have an important role in BoP organizations’ strategies that aim to solve BoP issues. Notwithstanding its developments, BoP research still lacks theoretical contributions for the analysis of organizations. We suggest special attention to the need of advancing knowledge on capabilities of BoP organizations because this field is scattered and (...) fragmented, misinterpreted, and still underdeveloped in the literature. We oriented our research formulating and seeking answers to our main question on what are the capabilities needed to enable organizations to create sustainability values in BoP ecosystems? We conducted an integrative review of BoP research for the period from 1998 to 2019, and we found 22 key capabilities of BoP organizations. We organized the capabilities into four major categories including BoP Responsible Consumption, BoP Responsible Business Model, BoP Responsible Management, and BoP Responsible Innovation. We advanced propositions and discussions regarding the capabilities and major categories’ popularity, interdependence and combination, short- and long-term temporal functions, sustainability roles, and effectiveness to address BoP issues. Our article organizes the field of capabilities of BoP organizations; advances contributions and implications for management, organizations, and policymaking; and opens fruitful avenues for future research. (shrink)

This paper introduces the special issue 'The point of view of shared agency', a collection of papers that develops, and critically assesses, a striking development in recent philosophy of mind, epistemology, and developmental psychology, that is, the fundamental reappraisal of the time-honoured distinction between a ‘first-person' and a ‘third-person perspective' on our mental lives. In recent years, the nature of the ‘second-person standpoint' has become a major focus of work across a range of disciplines. More recently, the idea of ‘first-person (...) plural knowledge', has received some attention, for example in considering knowledge of what ‘we are doing’ when we are doing things together. This collection explores collective agency, self-knowledge, and knowledge of other minds, from this plural and relational point of view. (shrink)

Some of the ways in which the experience of mothering is shaped by the moral and cultural constructions surrounding breastfeeding discourse are examined using a critical deconstruction of recent Canadian health education material. Connections between the understandings surrounding breastfeeding and cultural constructions of nature and sexuality are raised, as is the overlap between breastfeeding discourse and a number of other social discourses including those surrounding child-centered parenting expertise, the remoralization of pregnancy, and the neoliberal preoccupation with individual responsibility and the (...) cost of social programs. Some of the implications that this understanding poses for mothers are examined. (shrink)

In this article we offer a single case study using an action research method for gathering and analysing data offering insights valuable to both design and research supervision practice. We do not attempt to generalise from this single case, but offer it as an instance that can improve our understanding of research supervision practice. We question the conventional ‘dyadic’ models of research supervision and outline a more collaborative model, based on the signature pedagogy of architecture: the design studio. A novel (...) approach to the supervision of creatively oriented postgraduate students is proposed, including new approaches to design methods and participatory supervision that draw on established design studio practices. This model collapses the distance between design and research activities. Our case study involving Master's Research Students supervision in the discipline of Architecture, shows how ‘connected learning’ emerges from this approach. This type of learning builds strong elements of creativity and fun, which promote and enhance student engagement. The results of our action research suggest that students learn to research more easily in such an environment and supervisory practices are enhanced when we apply the techniques and characteristics of design studio pedagogy to the more conventional research pedagogies imported from the humanities. We believe that other creative disciplines can apply similar tactics to enrich both the creative practice of research and the supervision of HDR students. (shrink)

This paper introduces the Special Issue: ‘The Roots of Normativity. Developmental, Comparative and Conceptual issues’. The contributions collected in this volume aim to present a picture of contemporary accounts of normativity that integrate philosophy and developmental and comparative psychology and purport to provide the reader with new insights regarding a classical debate about what makes us human: being governed by norms and being able to orient ourselves in the light of them. This introduction presents a broad picture of the issues (...) at the heart of traditional discussions on normativity and lays out a set of conditions which a proper account of normativity should meet. In so doing the main common themes that unify these papers are brought to the fore. In particular, all of them share the idea that human-specific norms are themselves social. Once questions concerning the evolution of normative capacities and their development are considered, however, they pose - so it is argued - specific challenges to an account of normativity. While the traditional approaches fail to face such challenges, it is the main aim of the papers in this Special Issue to meet them. In concluding, a brief overview of each paper is provided. (shrink)

Constructing a dialogue between the social theory of Alain Touraine and the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, this work locates the wellsprings of the renewed intepretative powers of Touraine's recent sociology of the subject and critique of modernity in an implicit and unfinished, but unmistakable 'hermeneutical turn'.

O presente artigo tem como objetivo analisar as implicações críticas da imunização biopolítica da vida humana a partir das reflexões de Roberto Esposito, problematizando a seguinte questão: em tempos de pandemia viral e, consequentemente, de Estados emergenciais, de que maneira o paradigma imunitário atua sobre a vida humana? A hipótese que gostaríamos de desenvolver parte do relevo de que, em crises agudas, o paradigma imunitário é tensionado ao seu limite, convergindo para a produção de Estados de emergência segundo os quais (...) são responsáveis por introduzir políticas nefastas de produção tanto da vida quanto da morte. Para validar nossa hipótese e desenvolver o objetivo e a problemática da pesquisa, o presente texto se organiza em dois momentos: primeiramente, nosso intuito consiste em apresentar brevemente a reflexão de Esposito acerca do paradigma imunitário; em seguida, temos como fito analisar criticamente o estado de pandemia viral à luz do paradigma imunitário, buscando encontrar vestígios de como tal ferramenta conceitual nos permite desenvolver uma interpretação para o tempo presente. (shrink)

To address the tension between demands for more transparent AI systems and the aim to develop and design robots with apparent agency for smooth and intuitive human-robot interaction (HRI), we present in this paper an argument for why explainability in HRI would benefit from being question-centered. First, we review how explainability has been discussed in AI and HRI respectively, to then present the challenge in HRI to accommodate the requirement of transparency while also keeping up the appearance of the robot (...) as a social agent. Based on the conceptualization of questions as information-seeking acts, our proposal for a question-centered approach to explainable HRI (xHRI) implies that to ensure transparency, robots shall provide explanations upon request in the form of questioning. We end this paper by laying out a preliminary taxonomy of xHRI-relevant questions that present the kinds of explanations a robot can or should be able to provide for successful and transparent HRI. (shrink)

SummaryThis essay provides an overview of the disciplinary and analytical significance of David Armitage's Foundations of Modern International Thought in the context of the new international history, and the so-called ‘international turn’. It then goes on to discuss the significance of the absence of women in this new sub-field of intellectual history.

This article provides an overview of recent contributions to the debate on the ethical use of previously collected biobank samples, as well as a country report about how this issue has been regulated in Spain by means of the new Biomedical Research Act, enacted in the summer of 2007. By contrasting the Spanish legal situation with the wider discourse of international bioethics, we identify and discuss a general trend moving from the traditional requirements of informed consent towards new models more (...) favourable to research in a post‐genomic context. (shrink)

Even if it appears quite evident that we live within society and as a consequence are bound together by shared norms and institutions, the nature of this relationship is a source of philosophical perplexity. After discussing the conditions of adequacy a conception of shared norms must accommodate, I discuss communitarian and interpretationist accounts of shared norms. I claim that they are problematic insofar as they fail to provide an adequate conception of the shared and binding character of social norms. Finally, (...) I argue that a different understanding of the shared character of norms follows from a correct understanding of the conditions of adequacy at stake. (shrink)

The publication of the revised edition of Place and Experience provides the occasion to discuss Malpas’ original account of place, and its role in a proper account of the central features of human minds. The first edition is a groundbreaking work on the embodiment and embeddedness of human minds, that prefigures more recent developments of a now established field of research on embodied minds: so-called E accounts. In this paper, I address three issues in Malpas’ book that I found problematic (...) at times and unclear at others, and argue that E- accounts, or better, a particular rendering of them, can better dissolve. These interrelated issues are: 1. the use of the idea of mental representations to understand location and orientation; 2. the claim that non-human animals have ‘environments’ but lack ‘worlds’, 3. the use of two exclusive vocabularies, the physical and the mental, for describing cognition. I thus question such ideas, associated with traditional accounts of cognition, which not only are responsible for some of the gravest criticisms such accounts have received, but seem inadequate to Malpas’ characterization of minds as placed. My recommendation is to take a step back from the traditional framework, and allow ourselves to simply move forward. (shrink)

We argue that if a different definition of sentence complexity is adopted and processing capacity is assessed in a way that is consistent with that definition, then the Caplan & Waters distinction between interpretive versus postinterpretive processing is unnecessary insofar that it applies to the thematic role assignment in relative-clause sentences.

There is little to refute in Collerton et al.'s argument that recurrent complex visual hallucinations involve multiple physiological mechanisms, and the target article's proposed PAD model implicitly incorporates this concept, advancing the field. The novel concept in this model is the intrusion of hallucinatory proto-objects into relatively preserved scenes. The weakness of the model is the lack of physiological detail for this mechanism.

Notre intention dans cet article est de montrer qu’il existe deux versions différentes du souverain bien politique chez Kant et de déterminer laquelle est la plus cohérente avec l’ensemble de sa philosophie pratique. Ayant d’abord soutenu une version forte et étatique du Völkerbund conçu comme un Völkerstadt, Kant s’en éloigne progressivement jusqu’à soutenir une version non étatique de l’ordre juridique et politique international sous la forme d’une association d’États libres. Les arguments d’ordre moral avancés par Kant pour soutenir cette nouvelle (...) version de la Société des Nations ne sont rationnellement acceptables que si nous convenons qu’il a désormais abandonné l’analogie individu / État qui se trouvait pourtant à la base de l’argumentation visant à rendre nécessaire l’institution d’un ordre international. La faillite de l’analogie individu / État annonce que le modèle vers lequel doit s’orienter l’ordre politique international n’est pas l’État de droit coercitif et légal, mais l’idéal de la communauté éthique qui repose sur l’autonomie et l’intention morale des États.The purpose of this article is to determine which of the two representations of the highest political good in Kant’s philosophy is the more consistent with his whole practical philosophy. After having defended a strong version of the highest politicaI good, in which the Völkerbund was more like a Völkerstadt, Kant went on to affirm a non-state version of the international political and juridical order, now conceived as an association of free states. The arguments Kant proposes to ground his new conception of the international political order cannot be very convincing unless we admit that he has definitively abandoned the earlier analogy he made between the individual and the state. The collapsing of this analogy, which he had first proposed in order to justify a legalization of the international political order, shows that the model he has in mind for the highest political good is not the power of the national state but the ideal of an ethical commonwealth which relies only on the autonomy and the moral intentions of the states. (shrink)

Mi objetivo en este artículo es analizar el alcance de las argumentaciones kripkensteinianas acerca de las reglas. Mi estrategia argumentativa será la siguiente: en primer lugar presentaré el argumento de Kripke y luego la objeción de Soames a este argumento: hay dos sentidos posibles en los que se utiliza el término “determinar”, como determinación epistémica y como determinación metafísica. Según Soames, esta distinción nos permite sostener, en contra de Kripke, que hay hechos que determinan metafísicamente el significado, aún si no (...) hay una determinación epistémica de los mismos. Objetaré esta salida al argumento cuestionando el postular una determinación metafísica que deja en un misterio las cuestiones epistémicas relativas a la semántica. Son precisamente estos rasgos los que el escéptico nos pide que expliquemos. Por lo tanto a continuación expongo una serie de alternativas que, asociadas con una posición metafísica, intentan dar cuenta del factor epistémico propio de la semántica. Argumentaré que todas estas alternativas, al postular hechos, dejan inexplicado dicho factor. De este modo intentaré mostrar que el resultado escéptico de la reflexión kripkensteiniana sigue en pie, ninguna teoría semántica que postule hechos para dar cuenta del factor epistémico, indisolublemente ligado a la conducta verbal, puede efectivamente hacerlo. (shrink)

The work of nursing involves both treatment orientated action and care orientated action, but there exists a ‘treatment–care’ dichotomy that is structured by social factors and views of knowledge that privilege scientific, instrumental rationality. It is a claim of this paper that there is a need to establish connections between ‘treatment’ and ‘care’. The study of work processes in the healthcare field make it possible for nursing to recognize the technical and social separation of work, the separation between manual and (...) intellectual work, the dominance of medicine among healthcare professionals, and other relations of power within institutions. The authors believe that Habermas' theory of communicative action offers an alternative view, one suitable for transforming healthcare practices and helping nurses build new responses to healthcare needs. (shrink)

Deciding to take industrial action or go on strike has been an issue of great concern for nurses. While it is typical for most groups of workers to undertake industrial action in the pursuit of better wages and working conditions or improved quality of services, historically, nurses have found this a difficult course to pursue. Frequently, nurses have been caught between acceptance of themselves as ordinary workers and a professional model, which has carried with it the implication that a profession (...) does not engage in industrial action (although, in reality, professions, including medical practitioners, have undertaken industrial action). Nurses in Australia have gone on strike, although widespread industrial action was not undertaken until the 1980s, when lengthy industrial campaigns, including strikes, were used in an effort to achieve enhanced status for the profession, improved career paths and increased salaries. While debate remains about the efficacy of this course of action, large numbers of nurses have been involved in these campaigns. Significant changes in salaries and status were achieved in the 1980s. (shrink)

Brandom is one of the main advocators of the idea that meaning is instituted within basic linguistic practices through mutual exchanges. The aim of this paper is to show that such framework cannot do the required job if the dynamics of mutual exchanges is understood in interpretational terms. After arguing that the interpretational framework does not work, the paper presents an alternative second-personal conversational model capable of meeting the challenge.

We review the current state of play in the game of naturalizing content and analyse reasons why each of the main proposals, when taken in isolation, is unsatisfactory. Our diagnosis is that if there is to be progress two fundamental changes are necessary. First, the point of the game needs to be reconceived in terms of explaining the natural origins of content. Second, the pivotal assumption that intentionality is always and everywhere contentful must be abandoned. Reviving and updating Haugeland’s baseball (...) analogy in the light of these changes, we propose ways of redirecting the efforts of players on each base of his intentionality All-Star team, enabling them to start functioning effectively as a team. Only then is it likely that they will finally get their innings and maybe, just maybe, even win the game. (shrink)